California HW 1, or Pacific Coast Highway, is one of the most scenic rides in the USA. Its whole length is 659 miles which would take days, if not weeks, to explore thoroughly and completely. But you can do portions of it at different times which can make for a nice one day California road trip itinerary. Today we are going to explore a small part of CA-1 that lies between Pacifica and Santa Cruz.
We have chosen this California road trip itinerary specifically because we wanted to kill two birds with one stone: to do the scenic ride and to witness a unique phenomenon that happens only about twice a year – California King Tides. But let’s not run ahead of ourselves and start from the beginning and I will explain this natural phenomenon just a tad later. I also would like to make a note of the fact that this portion of CA-1 has a lot of State Parks along the route. We are not going to visit any of them this time because we have a different goal in mind for this trip and because they deserve your undivided attention. We plan to create separate itineraries dedicated to each of these wonderful state parks – so stay tuned!
This road trip itinerary starts in Pacifica. We like to visit Pacifica often. In fact, you can spend the whole day just in town – a complete family road trip itinerary for Pacifica has already been published on my blog. Pacifica is a good starting point for this trip because HW 1 running through it has lots of scenic views including Rockaway and Pacifica State Beaches. Our first stop was at Pacifica Pier. Depending on the weather, your experience on the pier may be different. We came after a storm and the waves were still incredible. To see them forming, gaining strength, rising almost to the height of the pier and then crushing on shore with full force is a sight to behold! The pier is also a great place to watch sea birds and harbor seals trying to steal fishermen’s bait and doing various acrobatic tricks in the water. Our kids love the seals – it is almost like watching a SeaWorld performance but free of charge and in a natural habitat 😉
Our second stop of this road trip itinerary was on San Gregorio Beach. It is different from other coastal beaches because it has a creek running through it towards the ocean and a lot of drift wood on shore. Kids love playing in a calm shallow creek and building things with driftwood. If it were up to them they would probably stay here the whole day!
Our third most favorite stop on this route is Pigeon Point Lighthouse (officially called Pigeon Point Light Station State Historic Park). It is a beautiful installation in a very picturesque setting. The staff present on site is very helpful. They did a tour for us in such a manner so that it was interesting specifically for kids. Our kids were engaged the whole time and we learnt a lot of cool information about lighthouses, the Pacific Coast, sea trade and much more.
After these three stops your kids will probably be ready for a snack. One place we love to stop by that is right on HW 1 is Swanton Berry Farm. Once you see this yellow truck with a huge strawberry (see the photo bellow) you’ll know you have arrived. We have never been on this farm in season for picking various berries they offer but besides berries we love this place for fresh hot soup, berry chocolate truffles (both for a fee) and FREE berry jam tasting! Usually they offer about half a dozen jams to try accompanied by animal crackers. Could you ask for more? 😉
Just a couple of miles further down the road is our stop # 4 – Shark Fin Cove. Depending on the amount of time you have you can walk on top of the bluff or get down to the bottom of the cove or do both. We have not tried the route down – it looked a bit treacherous for small kids. The cove is beautiful and the rock in the middle of it definitely looks like a giant shark’s fin. Do walk a little further along the bluff to see how this rock looks from behind!
From here to Santa Cruz is less than 10 miles. Once you arrive in town it would be good to stop for proper lunch. If you did not pack a picnic I can recommend a place: West End Tap and Kitchen. Do not let beer glasses on their website’s front page fool you. This is one of the most kid friendly places I have been to. Imagine a huge private booth with pillows, high walls for privacy, the top portion of which is designed as a circular blackboard for kids to draw on with chalk. Drawing on the walls allowed!!! – isn’t this every kid’s dream?? Even I was tempted to leave my mark on the wall just for the fun of it! The food here is great too: lot of excellent organic veggie options, scrumptious cheese selection, yummy burgers and lots of local beers to try.
Our final destination was Santa Cruz coastline in search of California King Tide. King Tides happen about twice a year, they bring extremely high and extremely low tides (close to -2 ft) which is perfect for tidepooling (you can see future tides predictions on NOAA website). There are several places along the coast where you can go tidepooling but we were targeting a specific area that is not typically exposed and famous for octopus and sea star spotting located at Pleasure Point/East Cliff Drive (with staircases going down to the beach at 36th and 38th avenues).
The site of a King Tide is magnificent: you will have a lot of ground to explore normally covered by water. Our “hunt” resulted in finding anemones, various types of crabs, turban snails and other mollusks. A couple of people did see sea stars but we were not that lucky. No one we talked to saw an octopus, which was a little disappointing but instead we found a strange creature which was spitting water at us on approach. The spout was high enough to get almost to my knees. We tried to figure out who it was but the creature was hiding in stone crevasses. The creature was not alone: we got spat at several times but the identity of the “spitter” is still a mystery to us 🙂 May be we can discover it next time or if you know who it is, please, tell us in your comment below.
And of course there were many beautiful sea birds hunting for the same treasures that we did. Everybody and their brother was on the beach that day and it felt like a big fun community party. The only downside of such a popular event, is, of course, an extreme difficulty in finding parking. We had to drive around a fair amount to get a spot within reasonable walking distance from the beach.
Overall it was a glorious day. Nothing beats a coastal family road trip: it was fun, educational and it did not cost anything (except for lunch and a couple of bucks for truffles at Swanton Berry Farm, but they were definitely worth it!)
For more information about nature attractions in Santa Cruz, please, check out my Santa Cruz family road trip itinerary.
USEFUL RESOURCES FOR THIS TRIP:
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